Where's Bertie? He's in a car park at the Englischer Garten on the east side of Munich (exact location: 48.16324, 11.606)
Weather: Another day without a cloud. Hot (mid-thirties).
Contrary to expectations when I posted yesterday's blog, we didn't spend last night in the car park at Riemer Park. At just gone 8.30pm I suggested that maybe we should travel on to our next destination. Arriving at 9pm there would certainly be space available, and I suspected it would also be quieter than at Riemer Park. A flurry of activity and within ten minutes we were packed away and on the road.
It turned out to be a good decision for a number of reasons - notably because: 1) even at 9pm there were only a couple of spaces available and at the time we would have arrived this morning there were none; 2) the parking here is fully shaded so was much cooler; and 3) it gave me more flexibility to change my mind about today's plans.
On the basis that today was forecast to be in the mid-thirties and tomorrow only the high twenties, I decided yesterday afternoon to postpone today's run until tomorrow. Today we would sightsee in the city.
That plan changed when I checked the detailed forecast this morning and found that until 9 today it was predicted to be cool (17 degrees rising to 21), whereas tomorrow's night/day variation is much smaller, with an overnight low of 21. Suddenly, bringing my run back to today seemed like a mighty fine idea.
I was teaed, breakfasted and out the door by twenty past seven and soon came to appreciate two things. Firstly, the Englischer Garten (a very large area of parkland with a multitude of paths) is gloriously shaded by trees over most of its expanse - ideal for hot weather running:
And secondly, there was clearly a running event going on here today:
I kept to the outer edge of the east portion of the park, giving a lap distance of just over 5 miles. It was on my second lap that the bikes leading the event runners overtook me, shouting information I couldn't understand (but presumably "You're about to have some fast runners come past on your left. You'd be advised to maintain your line."). The same front runners came back past again later - I'd clearly taken a significant short-cut on their route. I later learnt from the event website that this was the half marathon.
The same website also told me that only people wearing the official race t-shirt would be given water and bananas at the aid station. It wasn't true. The first time I ran through was well before the first runners and I was offered water. The second time I was in amongst a group of front runners and I was offered both food and water - all in excellent humour and with applause and encouragement, even though I was clearly not in the race.
Back at Bertie, once I'd rinsed about eighty gallons of sweat off myself and had ingested second breakfast, we headed out to the area where a percussion band was drumming out good running rhythms ...and arrived there just as they stopped. The half marathon had just about finished and the 10k race was yet to start.
After a bit of wandering around, we positioned ourselves by one of the smaller rivers (a number of watercourses run through the parkland), where we knew the 10k runners would pass and where, by way of intermediate entertainment, we had a good view of a group of chaps having a game of 7-a-side football:
Just behind our waiting point. The fire crew had just set up their hoses, pumping from the river, to spray water over the course. It was gone 11am by now and was HOT!
The informal football match (shirts vs skins). Mick appointed himself as ball-boy on this side of the 'pitch'.
Our chosen spectating spot transpired to be less than a mile from the finish, so we waited a long while for anyone to come past. Only when the masses reached us did we realise the error in our location: there were so many runners, we couldn't cross the path to get back to Bertie until they started thinning out well after the 60-minute pacers had gone by. We then arrived back at Bertie to discover that he was parked about 10 paces from, and within unobstructed sight of, a slightly later bit of the route.
Our afternoon was quieter (except for the live band that has been going on all day!) with much sitting around. Initially indoors, until the heat got too much, then we grabbed the deckchairs and lugged them into the parkland to join what appeared to be half the population of Munich. We didn't join those in the river, but I have to say that jumping in the fast-moving river and riding it until it joined the big slow-moving river looked like great fun.
Afternoon view
Weather: Another day without a cloud. Hot (mid-thirties).
Contrary to expectations when I posted yesterday's blog, we didn't spend last night in the car park at Riemer Park. At just gone 8.30pm I suggested that maybe we should travel on to our next destination. Arriving at 9pm there would certainly be space available, and I suspected it would also be quieter than at Riemer Park. A flurry of activity and within ten minutes we were packed away and on the road.
It turned out to be a good decision for a number of reasons - notably because: 1) even at 9pm there were only a couple of spaces available and at the time we would have arrived this morning there were none; 2) the parking here is fully shaded so was much cooler; and 3) it gave me more flexibility to change my mind about today's plans.
On the basis that today was forecast to be in the mid-thirties and tomorrow only the high twenties, I decided yesterday afternoon to postpone today's run until tomorrow. Today we would sightsee in the city.
That plan changed when I checked the detailed forecast this morning and found that until 9 today it was predicted to be cool (17 degrees rising to 21), whereas tomorrow's night/day variation is much smaller, with an overnight low of 21. Suddenly, bringing my run back to today seemed like a mighty fine idea.
I was teaed, breakfasted and out the door by twenty past seven and soon came to appreciate two things. Firstly, the Englischer Garten (a very large area of parkland with a multitude of paths) is gloriously shaded by trees over most of its expanse - ideal for hot weather running:
And secondly, there was clearly a running event going on here today:
I kept to the outer edge of the east portion of the park, giving a lap distance of just over 5 miles. It was on my second lap that the bikes leading the event runners overtook me, shouting information I couldn't understand (but presumably "You're about to have some fast runners come past on your left. You'd be advised to maintain your line."). The same front runners came back past again later - I'd clearly taken a significant short-cut on their route. I later learnt from the event website that this was the half marathon.
The same website also told me that only people wearing the official race t-shirt would be given water and bananas at the aid station. It wasn't true. The first time I ran through was well before the first runners and I was offered water. The second time I was in amongst a group of front runners and I was offered both food and water - all in excellent humour and with applause and encouragement, even though I was clearly not in the race.
Back at Bertie, once I'd rinsed about eighty gallons of sweat off myself and had ingested second breakfast, we headed out to the area where a percussion band was drumming out good running rhythms ...and arrived there just as they stopped. The half marathon had just about finished and the 10k race was yet to start.
After a bit of wandering around, we positioned ourselves by one of the smaller rivers (a number of watercourses run through the parkland), where we knew the 10k runners would pass and where, by way of intermediate entertainment, we had a good view of a group of chaps having a game of 7-a-side football:
Just behind our waiting point. The fire crew had just set up their hoses, pumping from the river, to spray water over the course. It was gone 11am by now and was HOT!
The informal football match (shirts vs skins). Mick appointed himself as ball-boy on this side of the 'pitch'.
Our chosen spectating spot transpired to be less than a mile from the finish, so we waited a long while for anyone to come past. Only when the masses reached us did we realise the error in our location: there were so many runners, we couldn't cross the path to get back to Bertie until they started thinning out well after the 60-minute pacers had gone by. We then arrived back at Bertie to discover that he was parked about 10 paces from, and within unobstructed sight of, a slightly later bit of the route.
Our afternoon was quieter (except for the live band that has been going on all day!) with much sitting around. Initially indoors, until the heat got too much, then we grabbed the deckchairs and lugged them into the parkland to join what appeared to be half the population of Munich. We didn't join those in the river, but I have to say that jumping in the fast-moving river and riding it until it joined the big slow-moving river looked like great fun.
Afternoon view
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